This collection consists of records
(1876-1974) of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and contains correspondence,
court papers, financial and production records, legal documents, organizational
records, subject files, and other materials for the Anaconda Copper Mining
Company and many of its predecessor and subsidiary companies and departments.
Among the major subgroups are General Office; Big Blackfoot Milling Company;
Bitter Root Development Company; Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and
Silver Mining Company; Colorado Smelting and Mining Company; Diamond Coal and
Coke Company; Parrot Silver and Copper Company; Reduction Department
(Anaconda); Silver Bow Club; Trenton Mining and Development Company; Tuttle
Manufacturing and Supply Company; and Washoe Copper Company. In addition, there
are more than 100 smaller subgroups.

In 1876 Walker Brothers, a Salt Lake City, Utah, mining and banking
firm, hired Marcus Daly to investigate silver mining properties in Butte,
Montana. The Walkers and Daly purchased the Alice Mine and incorporated as the
Alice Gold and Silver Mining Company. Daly served as general superintendent
until he sold his interest in the company in 1880.

That same year he bought the Anaconda Mine, located by Michael Hickey
in October 1875. Hickey, unable to keep up annual assessment work on the mine,
had sold half interest in it to Charles Larabie, a banker. Larabie brought in
Daly as a third partner to sink a shaft. Daly got an option from his partners
to purchase the property for $30,000 and tried to interest the Walker Brothers
in investing in it. When they declined, Daly went to San Francisco and secured
the backing of James Haggin, George H. Hearst, and Lloyd Tevis. The four men
operated the mine under a partnership arrangement as a silver property. The
small quantities of copper which the mine produced were shipped to Swansea,
Wales, for processing. In late 1882 a rich copper vein was struck.

As copper became the main product of the mine, Daly decided to build
his own smelter instead of continuing the expensive procedure of shipping ore
to Wales. He located a suitable site on Warm Springs Greek, twenty six miles
west of Butte. He officially platted the new town of Anaconda on October 27,
1883, and began the construction of what became known as the Upper Works.
Transportation of the Butte ores to the new smelter was provided by the
narrow-gauge Montana Railway. This railroad, under the name Montana Union
Railway, was later operated jointly by the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific
companies. The original 500-ton capacity mill, completed in 1884, quickly
became inadequate and, within two years, was expanded to 1000 tons. During the
early years, only the initial stages of treatment were done at the Anaconda
Reduction Works, with the concentrated ore still being shipped to Wales for
refining. To eliminate this necessity, Daly built an experimental electrolytic
refinery, completed in 1888. He also built a second reduction plant, known as
the Lower Works, a mile east of the Upper Works. Fire destroyed this plant
shortly after its completion. Daly quickly rebuilt on an even larger scale.

While Daly was developing the Anaconda Reduction Works, he was also
expanding the basis of his mining operations. Until 1891 the
Haggin-Hearst-Tegin-Daly syndicate had operated its Montana properties as a
partnership under the name Anaconda Gold and Silver Mining Company. In January
1891 when it incorporated as the Anaconda Mining Company, the company owned
four groups of mines: the Anaconda Group, the Mountain Consolidated Group, the
Union Consolidated Group, and the Anglo-Saxon Group. Daly, Hearst, and Tegin
owned only the minimum shares required by law. Haggin held the remainder in
trust. The Anaconda Mining Company reinvested all profits in building its
facilities instead of giving dividends.

From 1891 to 1895 the Anaconda Mining Company began the process of
consolidating its control over its services and sources of raw materials.
Angered by the Montana Union Railway's high charges and inefficient service,
Daly built his own railroad, the Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific, to connect the
smelter with the mines. The Big Blackfoot Milling Company and the Bitter Root
Development Company were created as allied companies to provide Anaconda with
needed timber. The Castner Coal and Coke Company, with Daly as a minor
stockholder, provided the company with coal. The Tuttle Manufacturing and
Supply Company was formed to meet the smelter's foundry and hardware needs.
When a larger smelter was needed to meet increased treatment requirements at
Anaconda, the Washoe Copper Company was created to build the New Reduction
Works, which was then operated by Anaconda under a lease arrangement.

In 1895 the company was again reorganized, this time as the Anaconda
Copper Mining Company, with a capitalization of $30,000,000. Haggin's
trust-held properties were transferred to the new company and, over the next
year, several of the allied companies were brought in as subsidiaries.

In 1899 H.H. Rogers and A.C. Burrage, officers of the Standard Oil
Company and stockholders in the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, urged the union
of all Butte mining operations under one holding company. In April 1899 the
Amalgamated Copper Company was formed to acquire the stock of the Anaconda
Copper Mining Company and its subsidiary companies including the Big Blackfoot
Milling Company, the Bitter Root Development Company, the Diamond Coal and Coke
Company, the Tuttle Manufacturing and Supply Company, and the Washoe Copper
Company. In addition, the Amalgamated acquired several other previously
unallied Butte mining companies including the Boston and Montana Consolidated
Copper and Silver Mining Company and the Parrot Silver and Copper Company. The
Amalgamated Copper Company was simply a holding company and was not involved in
management of the various companies, which continued to operate independently.
The most important of the companies brought under the Amalgamated umbrella was
the Boston and Montana. It owned several important mining claims in Butte
(including the Mountain View and East Colusa) and a smelter in Great Falls.
This smelter, built in 1892, duplicated many of the facilities in Anaconda,
handling all levels of ore processing from concentration to refining.

In 1910 the Anaconda Copper Mining Company took over most of the
other companies in the Amalgamated Copper Company, all Amalgamated subsidiaries
becoming departments within Anaconda. One of the most important results of this
reorganization was that it allowed the two major reduction works at Anaconda
and Great Falls to coordinate their operations. Anaconda continued to handle
the early stages of concentrating and smelting, while Great Falls gradually
phased out these operations and specialized in refining. All stages prior to
refining were finally eliminated from Great Falls in 1919. At the same time,
Great Falls increased its refining capacity by the addition of an electrolytic
zinc plant. In 1915 the Amalgamated Copper Company ended its corporate
existence.

During the period that Anaconda Copper Mining Company was
consolidating its Montana operations, it was also expanding towards its goal of
controlling copper "from mine to consumer." In 1913 the company acquired the
International Smelting and Refining Company, which owned smelters at Tooele,
Utah, and Miami, Arizona, as well as the Raritan Copper Works in New Jersey. In
1922 Anaconda bought the American Brass Company in Waterbury, Connecticut, one
of the major producers of finished copper products. Also in the early 192Os,
Anaconda invested in Chile, acquiring the Chuquicamata copper mine from the
Guggenheim family, as well as the smaller, but important, Potrerillos mine. It
acquired from the heirs of Georg von Giesche a large zinc treatment plant at
Katowice, Poland. In 1928 W.A. Clark's heirs sold his Montana companies to
Anaconda. In 1955, in recognition of the wide range of corporate operations,
the company name was changed to The Anaconda Company.

The company prospered during World War II and the years following.
Several ambitious projects, including the Greater Butte Project to expand
underground operations and the Berkeley Pit to commence surface mining, were
undertaken. In 1971, however, Chile nationalized the Chuquicamata and other
American-owned mines. This, along with low copper prices brought about a
financial crisis. Forced to meet financial deadlines in New York, the company
sold its entire lumber operation, including thousands of square miles of
Montana timber land and the Bonner mill, to Champion International. This
liquidation, however, did not solve the company's financial problems, and in
1979 the company was purchased by the Atlantic-Richfield Company (ARCO). Over
the next few years, ARCO shut down its entire Montana operation, including the
Berkeley Pit in Butte, the Anaconda Smelter, and the Great Falls Refinery.

The Anaconda Copper Mining Company Records consist of correspondence,
court papers, financial and production records, legal documents, organizational
records, subject files, and other materials for the company and many of its
predecessor and subsidiary companies and departments. Among the major subgroups
into which the collection is arranged are the General Office, the Big Blackfoot
Milling Company, the Bitter Root Development Company, the Boston and Montana
Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company, the Butte and Boston
Consolidated Mining Company, the Colorado Smelting and Mining Company, the
Diamond Coal and Coke Company, the Parrot Silver and Copper Company, the
Reduction Department (Anaconda), the Trenton Mining and Development Company,
the Tuttle Manufacturing and Supply Company, and the Washoe Copper Company. In
addition, there are more than one hundred smaller subgroups (see Table of
Contents). Unconnected with the primary mining, smelting and timber operations
of the Company were several affiliated companies in the hotel and related
fields; oil and gas development; water and townsite companies; and newspaper
publishing. Subgroups for these include the Silver Bow Club, the Florence Hotel
and the Montana Hotel; the West Dome Oil Company; the Anaconda Townsite Company
and the Hamilton Water Company; and the Post Publishing Company and the Montana
Free Press.

Among the more significant operations documented in this collection
are the General Office, both in Butte and in Anaconda; the various subsidiary
operations, both before and after their absorption into Anaconda; and the two
large treatment plants, the Anaconda Smelter and the Great Falls Refinery.
Among the subjects documented are the technical and economic details of the two
smelters; the company's large lumber operations in the Missoula area; the
company's coal mines; relations with employees; and treatment and recovery of
tailings, including the related issue of air and water pollution. There is less
documentation for the core mining operations in Butte.

Alternative Forms Available

Some of the General Office financial ledgers have been microfilmed.

Restrictions on Use

The Montana Historical Society is the owner of the materials in the
Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication,
and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from the Research Library
before any reproduction use. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to
all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may
require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.

C.R. Wraith report on visits
to American Smelting and Refining Company (Hayden, Arizona), United Verde
Extension Mining Company (Clemeneau, Arizona), United Verde Copper Company
(Clarkdale, Arizona), International Smelting Company (Miami, Arizona),
Phelps-Dodge Corporation (Clifton and Douglas, Arizona), and Calumet and
Arizona Mining Company (Douglas, Arizona)

Local Tramming and Weighing
Department job descriptions and evaluations

1945-1946

454 / 14

Papers read at Washoe Assay
Society (includes "The determination of copper by the color and cyanide
methods" by Arthur Austin; "The determination of copper by the electrolytic
method" by L. Christie; "The ore job" by F.F. Frick; and "Fire asssaying for
silver and gold ores" by S. Hunter